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Vettel names Alonso and Hamilton as stand-out drivers

ESPN Staff
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Sebastian Vettel believes Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton will go down in history as all-time greats © Sutton Images
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Sebastian Vettel believes Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton stand out as two of the best drivers on the current Formula One grid.

When asked which of the current crop of drivers would go down in history as all-time greats, Vettel said: "It's very competitive, obviously, and there is a long list at the moment. If you look at this season we've had a lot of different winners and those drivers are very competitive and very fast, but the ones that stand out are Fernando - he's one of the most complete drivers - and Lewis is very quick. Then there are plenty of others. Michael is still in the game, I don't think he has lost it. It's always depending on how well you do in combination with the package and the car and the team etcetera."

Vettel has won back-to-back championships over the last two years, but said not all success should be measured on titles.

"Obviously [championship] success is a big part of it. If you look at great names from the past - I'm talking about drivers like Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Jackie Stewart and others - they all won a lot of titles. But sometimes there are other names that stay in your head and they stay around because they had something extra and were special.

"I think everyone in Formula One is a very quick race driver and knows what he's doing, but some guys had something extra. Maybe it's something the people loved, maybe it was very entertaining, very special to watch him driving the car - so there are plenty of other drivers who didn't win a world championship but are some people's heroes, and rightly so.

"Like Jochen Rindt, he won one championship but he was one guy in the German-speaking area who really attracted people for the first time really."

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